Note to Newbies:
Please consider getting older General Chemistry texts-- often "instructor's Editions" which are now seen in bookstores and online, as academic folks retire or go completely online. These texts of the last say 20 years and especially the recent ones, will give you the reasoning and the solved problems and the "dogma" which has quite well functioned as the "received" view, as say the era of "quantitative chemistry" (from about 1790-1850 to present ). I write this to help the Newbie appreciate the depth in this part of science and technology, both of the inertia and of the brilliance of current dogma. But most importantly how that dogma grew out of sustained, but open-minded investigation in the development of both chemistry and physics.
"Can" --- Thanks for your "amateur" efforts, which surely you know are possible raw material for future scientific advances.
-Longview